1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for preparing nitride nanomaterials, more particularly, to a simpler, safer, nontoxic, more widely applied and low-cost method for preparing nitride nanomaterials.
2. Description of Related Art
Nitride materials are one of important artificial synthetic materials and have been rapidly developed in recent years. In particular, numerous kinds of nitride materials have been widely applied, for example, including: (1) transition metal nitrides (e.g. VN, CrN, W2N, Mo2N), which have many excellent properties, such as high hardness, high melting point, high wear resistance, high corrosion resistance, high spread resistance and good thermal and chemical stability, and thus can be applied in high temperature structural ceramics, hard steels, tool coatings, diffusion barriers in electric components, and even catalysis due to their electronic structure similar to that of precious metals; (2) group IIIA nitrides, which have direct bandgap, strong chemical bond and good thermal conductivity and are used as important photoelectric semiconductor materials, such as, GaN which is the most potential material for white light LEDs, AlN used as an important electronic material, InN applicable to chemical and biosensors, and BN having application potential as, for example, a heat dispersing material, a cutting material and a lubricant owing to its high insulating property, high thermal conductivity, high lubricity, high temperature resistance and anti-sticking property; and (3) group IVA nitrides, having excellent properties of high heat resistance, high corrosion resistance, high wear resistance, high toughness and thus being potential in the application of the machinery and electronic fields, particularly silicon nitride, silicon carbide and other ceramic materials having high strength at high temperature in addition to the above-mentioned properties and thus being important structural ceramic materials.
Based on the above-mentioned excellent properties of nitrides and the rapid development of nanotechnology advantageous to the extension of nitride application range, there is an increasing interest in the manufacturing method and properties of nitride nanomaterials. The known methods for manufacturing nitrides include: sintering metal precursors under ammonia gas to prepare nanocrystalline nitrides; or reacting molecular precursors that contain nitrogen and metal into nanocrystalline nitrides.
However, the conventional sintering method under ammonia gas is dangerous and toxic, while the other conventional method for converting precursors into nitrides cannot be applied to all metals and has to be performed in the oxygen- and moisture-free condition, resulting in process complexity and high manufacturing cost.